I mentioned earlier I bought five books for six bucks at the Antiquarian Bookshop in Boston.

from "Apprehend" by Elizabeth Robinson (Apogee)

"You, Reader, come closer
and extend your fingers
through the bars of the cage

so I can feel their pleasing tenderness..."


from "Childhood" by Nathalie Sarraute

"The day the mistress gave back our essays, I wait with
the presentiment, but it's more like the certainty, that the
list will begin with my name. The mark written on the paper
is less important...it will probably be an 8 or a 9...
But, to confirm my success, it is absolutely necessary for my
name to be at the head of the list!..."

from "Sesame and Lilies" by John Ruskin

"My friends, I do not know why any of us should talk about
reading. We want some sharper discipline than that of reading; but,
at all events, be assured, we cannot read. No reading is possible for
a people with a mind in this state. No sentence of any great writer
is intelligible to them. It is simply and sternly impossible for the English
public , at this moment, to understand any thoughtful writing- so incapable
has thought become in the insanity of avarice: we ring true still, when
anything strikes home to us; and ...the idea that everything should
"pay" has infected our every purpose so deeply..."

from "Essays, Reviews, etc, etc" by William Makepeace Thackeray

"Arguing for liberty of conscience against any authority, however
great- against Doctor Arnold himself, who seems to me to be the greatest,
wisest, and best of men that has appeared for eighteen hundred years- let us
take a stand at once, and ask, Why should not the day have its literature?
Why should not authors make light sketches? Why should not the public
be amused daily or frequently by kindly fictions? The trivial and familiar
are out of place there; the harmless joker must walk away abashed
from such a presence, as he would be silent and hushed in a cathedral.
But all the world is not make of that angelic stuff..."

"The Double Dream of Spring" by John Ashbery

"I am still completely happy.
My resolve to win further I have
Thrown out, and am charged by the thrill
Of the sun coming up..."